A Time to Mend

by Sally John

  She crossed her arms.

  “This is ridiculous.” He clipped his words, clearly frustrated. “I can’t believe how you’re behaving. Pick up the phone!”

  Claire flinched. Max had never raised his voice to her like that, never said such awful words.

  “All right.” He lowered his voice, but the anger remained. “Be that way. I don’t know how you expect us to work things out if you refuse to talk. But don’t worry. I’ll leave you alone from now on.”

  The machine went quiet. After a moment, its red light blinked on.

  “I’ll leave you alone . . .” It was the message Claire had wanted to hear.

  Wasn’t it?

  Tandy handed her a paper towel. She felt, then, her cheeks, as wet as if she’d been standing in a downpour.

  Eighteen

  Max lost interest in alcohol before he turned twenty-one. As a teen he figured out it slowed him down too much. As a successful businessman, he could not afford to slow down.

  Now, though, Claire was gone, and business success didn’t seem to matter much. When his good friend Phil showed up with means to forget those most difficult of new developments, he made a conscious choice to slow down as much as possible. Life would hurt less.

  “Philip.” Max raised his glass toward his friend. “Have I mentioned what fortuitous foresight it was on your part to bring this magnanimous gift of rather excellent scotch?”

  Phil laughed. “Only once or twice, bud.”

  Neva slid onto a chair across the round patio table from him. The pool shimmered behind her in the twilight. Her dark hair shone, a crown of curls. She wore a short skirt and sleeveless blouse.

  “Nevie! My Dulcinea! Have I mentioned what a fine-looking woman you are?

  “Max, you’re really an ugly drunk.”

  “This is true.” He enunciated each syllable with great care. If he could still do that, he wasn’t too far gone, was he? “Which accounts for the reason I eschew such overindulgence. I need only one hand—nay, one finger—to number the time—since my wild and crazy adolescence—that this unhappy happystance, uh, unhappy happerstance, uh, that it has happened.”

  “You need some food. Dinner will be ready in a few minutes.”

  “Mmm, mmm, mmm. I can hardly wait. Neva’s world-famous enchiladas.”

  “You won’t like them so much after you’ve upchucked them.”

  Phil said, “It could ruin the delectable taste for life.”

  “Nah.” Max shook his head. “Neva, have I mentioned what a fantastic cook you are? Our kitchen is strictly a la-bor-a-tory here. A place for Claire to conduct experiments. To delve into the intricacies of gourmet. Nothing quite so basic and satisfying as enchiladas.” He savored the word, letting it roll off his tongue in true Español style. “Claire could learn a thing or two from you.”

  “Nope. We’re not going there, mister.”

  “What? I can’t insult her once in thirty years after what she’s done?”

  “I’m outta here, guys.”

  Max blinked a few times until Neva came back into focus. She was on her feet.

  “You two can take care of each other.”

  “Aw, come on, Nevie. Don’t you reject me too.”

  “Get a grip, Beaumont. Phil, I suggest you put him to bed, and stay put yourself until morning.”

  “Yes, please do, Philip.” Max nodded solemnly. “We have a guest room, you know. The last person to sleep in it was my wife.”

  “Good-bye.” Neva waved a hand and left.

  “See you, my Dulcinea!”

  Phil sat up straighter. “I hope she doesn’t take the food with her.”

  “Who needs food? I need another drink. Where’s the bottle? Uh-oh. She wouldn’t take that, would she?”

  “Nah. Would she? No. There it is. Good.”

  Max stared at the finger his friend pointed toward the booze and suddenly knew he’d had enough. “I’ve had my fill, Phil.” He grunted. “My fill of John Barleycorn and of women. Did you know my mother rejected me?”

  “Uh-oh. You’re talking about your mother. Definite sign you need another drink.”

  “All the women in my life rejected me. Pammy in high school, junior year. DeeDee, college, second year. Claire. Out of the blue. After thirty-two years. Now Neva. Do you see a pattern going here?”

  “Neva will be back. You sign her paycheck.”

  Max lifted his head and peered into Phil’s face. “That’s kind of low. Even in my excessively inebriated state, I can see you have a dis-eased attitude toward women.”

  “Yes, I do. Which explains why I am still a bachelor and always will be.” Phil’s chair scraped on the concrete. “Let’s eat.”

  “Nope. I’m going to bed.” Max staggered to his feet. “Make your-self at home.”

  “I don’t think I have a choice. Neva rode with me. She had to take my car. And she probably hid your keys.”

  “She’s a good woman.”

  “Yep. The best.”

  They meandered across the patio.

  “Claire’s a good woman too. I really do like gourmet.”

  Phil patted him on the back.

  A few moments later Max flopped onto his bed, aware enough to realize he was still fully clothed and spinning in a fog that was, unfortunately, not quite thick enough to obliterate the image of Claire walking out of his life.

  Nineteen

  Late Sunday night, Claire climbed onto the lumpy mattress, Max’s voice still playing in her head. “I’ll leave you alone.” It was the scariest thing she’d ever heard. Shivering, she pulled the covers tightly around her shoulders.

  Maybe she should call him.

  And say what?

  I don’t really want to live without you. I need you. Don’t leave me. Come and make this work between us.

  She shook her head. “No, Max, that’s not it. I don’t want to depend on you to save me any longer. God saved me. One time, anyway. I wonder if He would again? God, are You still listening?”

  Her aunt Helen had talked about Jesus, about His love for the whole world, including His love for little Claire Marie Lambert. He had seemed real at Helen’s house on the West Coast. At her parents’ house on the East Coast, He did not exist.

  Cancer took Helen at a young age. Claire was thirteen and had visited her only twice. Within weeks of graduating from high school, Claire headed to college in San Diego, far, far from home. She harbored great hopes that the spirit of Helen existed in the city where she had lived and died.

  The first eighteen months were hazy, the details insignificant. She made new acquaintances. She went to class. She worked on campus, in an office.

  Then she met Max.

  She smiled now in the dark. “Remember, Max?” she whispered aloud as if he were there. “It was trite as all get-out, the way we fell in love at first sight. I can still feel the butterflies. I don’t think I ate for weeks. You took me to that romantic hacienda where you grew up, and I met your parents. That was when I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt I wanted to marry you.”

  He didn’t get along well with Ben and Indio, but Claire immediately liked them. “Family” and “Aunt Helen” were written all over their countenances. They were good, solid people she’d met within a year of BJ’s disappearance. He had joined the Navy, become a pilot, and fought in Vietnam.

  That was another bone of contention with Max. Although he buckled down in college—quite a feat considering he nearly failed high school—he still could not measure up. After all, his brother went off to war. His brother was a real hero.

  After BJ was declared missing in action, there was no way on earth Max could ever be good enough. He competed with a ghost. Who could win at that?

  Claire didn’t understand much of that until later. What spoke to her, though, was Indio’s unwavering trust in Christ. Even as she reeled from the news of BJ and endured months and then years of not knowing what happened to him, she proclaimed God’s love for her.

  In spite of Aunt Helen’s an
d Indio’s openness about their faith, Claire hadn’t been interested until sometime after she and Max eloped. Their marriage and their business had both been on the verge of col-lapse. She had nowhere else to turn. Guilt and despair were eating her alive. She went to church and found relief in the music, in the friendly people—and in hearing that Jesus forgave her. By then she’d had major things that needed to be forgiven.

  Eventually Max joined her at church. They even sought counseling with the pastor. He helped them see that love was a verb, that they needed to forgive each other, reorder their lives, and promise never to walk out.

  Simple enough. They embraced Christian rules that weren’t difficult to keep. They seldom missed church; they raised the children in it. They were kind and hospitable. They were generous with their money and material possessions.

  The butterflies flittered away at some point, but she adored Max. Their dream to create a business to help people find jobs was coming true. Soon their first baby was on his way, another dream realized.

  Things fell into place. Max was the head of their household. Claire was the epitome of a properly submissive wife.

  And that was where it all went haywire.

  How she had longed to be a good wife! She heard the key was in submission. So she listened to all the tapes and read all the books she could find on the subject and took copious notes. Her newfound knowledge could be lumped together under one title: “If Hubby Ain’t Happy, It’s Your Fault, Woman.”

  Wacky as that sounded, it suited her. She liked following orderly steps and keeping rules.

  “You know what, Max? I see now that I got the title totally wrong. But you know I willingly embraced it. And I took full credit for every unhappy moment you ever had.”

  The absurdity of those words sank in. She yelped a loud laugh and smashed a pillow over her face to muffle the noise. “Good grief !” she squealed. “I need a shrink.”

  When the giggles finally subsided, she removed the pillow and sighed. “Or I need You, Lord. Are You still with me? Indio would say yes. Okay, so here’s the thing: Max was only happy when he was working. Ergo, I let him work all he wanted. I took over more and more with the house and the kids. I tried not to whine or pout. Whenever he chose office over family, I let him off the hook. ‘Fine. See you when you get here! No problemo!’ A wife can’t go around embedding hooks in her husband and then expect happy smiles from him, can she?”

  She exhaled heavily. “There’s more to it than that. While I was busy keeping him happy, my identity went away. It got all mixed up with his. I lost my own voice, my own opinion. I couldn’t be real. I wore a mask, always pretending life was fine. I don’t think that’s the way it’s supposed to be. Is it?”

  She shut her eyes and willed her mind to stop spinning. He prob-ably wasn’t even there, let alone listening.

  Claire awoke with a heart thud. On the bedside table, Beethoven rang out. Grabbing the cell phone, she glanced at the clock. It was four twenty-two.

  The phone display lit up, and she saw her home number. Max was calling.

  Anger flooded through her, an instantaneous bursting of a dam.

  She punched the On button. “What?”

  “Claire, I’m sorry.”

  “You said you wouldn’t—”

  “Claire, your dad called.”

  The hot flush of wrath intensified. Her dad. Typical. He hadn’t thought to call on her birthday yesterday, wouldn’t bother to remember to send a card or—

  “It’s your mom.”

  Her mom. Claire went still. There would be only one message about her mom.

  “Honey, she’s gone. I’m sorry.”

  Twenty

  From her window seat in first class, Claire eyed the passenger beside her. Wrinkled and tanned, chunky jewels on fingers and wrists, effusing a thickly sweet fragrance, the woman displayed obscene wealth with a flourish.

  She was on her third whiskey sour.

  And they were only halfway to Chicago.

  Claire unbuckled her seatbelt and whisked her handbag off the floor. “Excuse me.” She shuffled around the woman, hit the aisle with a purposeful stride, and lurched to the back of the plane.

  She was on her way to Fayetteville, North Carolina, to bury her mother. Literally bury her this time. The other time, many years ago, had been a figurative burial, a coming to terms with Alzheimer’s.

  “Ma’am.”

  Claire focused and saw she was at the tail end of the plane, along-side a galley.

  A young flight attendant smiled. “That lavatory is available.”

  “Oh, I don’t need— May I just stand here for a bit?”

  “Sure. Are you all right?”

  Claire nodded. Bald-faced lie.

  Her mother was dead. Again. Still. For good this time.

  Jenna and Lexi had offered to accompany her. They’d never known their grandmother, though. How could they? Claire hadn’t known her.

  At least the woman had the decency to die the day after Claire’s birthday. Maybe that was supposed to cancel the horror she’d managed to thrust into every birthday Claire could remember from childhood.

  From childhood? What about the horror of the other night? What about on her thirtieth? What about countless others since she’d married Max?

  He had stepped in where her mother left off.

  Claire shuddered.

  Max was coming, but not with her. He would arrive Wednesday. He would come on the company jet as soon as he could. Certainly in time for the visitation, he said.

  Typical Max snafu. He wasn’t with her here and now.

  But considering the unfinished business between them, did she even want him there?

  Claire had driven home before dawn; Max greeted her with a hug. She didn’t ask questions about the snores emanating from the guest room. Max simply said, “Phil.” While she packed, he went about making all the arrangements for her: a limo to the airport, the flight, the hotel, a limo for in between. Neither mentioned the cur-rent situation.

  Their marriage cruised into limbo.

  “Ma’am, are you sure you’re okay?” The flight attendant leaned toward her and whispered. “You’re awfully flushed.”

  “I’m okay.” She touched her face. It was hot and damp. Her breathing was labored. Her legs shook.

  Another woman—not a flight attendant—appeared at her elbow. “Why don’t you sit down here?”

  “What?”

  “You’re welcome to sit here.” She gestured at the last row, at three vacant seats.

  “Oh.”

  The attendant touched her elbow. “I’ll get you some water.”

  “Thank you.” Claire turned and slid into the farthest seat. There was no window next to it.

  “Please.” The woman spoke again. “Take the aisle seat.”

  “No. Thank you. This is—this is . . . fine.”

  “That seat makes me claustrophobic.”

  “It’s fine.”

  The attendant handed her a cup of water. “Here you go, ma’am. Let me know if I can get you anything else.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Remember to buckle your seatbelt while seated, please.” She rushed off.

  Claire’s chin quivered. Water in one hand, handbag in the other, she felt helpless. She couldn’t take any more. She really couldn’t. A tear slid from the corner of her eye.

  “Let me help.” The woman lowered the tray for the seat between them, relieved her of the cup, and set it on the tray. “Now you can take care of the seatbelt. You know how they are about that.” She smiled.

  Claire stared at her. Her eyes were soft, a light blue. She wore a white blouse with tabs at the shoulders. She was a pilot. Maybe she thought Claire was a security problem. She should explain.

  “My mother died yesterday.”

  “I’m sorry. Had she been ill?”

  “My whole life. She was an alcoholic.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  Claire hugged her purse tightly and turned
away to cry in private.

  The kicker was not her mother’s life or death. It was that, in a very real sense, Claire had married her mother. Not that Max drank. In spite of Phil’s snores and the half-empty bottle of scotch she’d spied in the kitchen, Max did not drink. No. Max worked.

  And he would work no matter what. No matter that it had taken him out of her birthday celebration. No matter that it left her to travel alone back to the hell of her childhood. He would work until the day he died.

  Why, God? Why, oh why did You do this to me? I kept all Your rules and then some. I bent over backwards to keep Max happy. He still chooses work and everyone else over me. Just like my mother. Just like my dad, who never had the time of day for me.

  Are You there, God? What is it You want from me?

  Claire unfastened the seatbelt. She slid off her shoes, pulled her knees up to her chest, and scrunched herself into a tight fetal ball, wishing with all her might that the plane would just fly her to the moon.

  Twenty-one

  The mere mention of Fayetteville, North Carolina, raised Max’s hackles like nothing else could. Spending half a day in the city almost put him over the edge.

  At least he hadn’t punched anybody.

  Not yet, anyway. He still had another twelve hours to go.

  The main target of his animosity sat across the kitchen table from him. His name was George Lambert. Without a doubt, even at the age of eighty, he was the meanest son of a gun Max had ever met. He also happened to be Claire’s dad.

  “Max.” She turned to him now, moving within the confines of his arm draped over the back of her chair. “What do you think?”

  “Whatever you think is best, hon.”

  Max had no idea what they were talking about. He’d assigned him-self specific jobs: take care of travel details, carry the luggage, remain by Claire’s side throughout the ordeal, not punch his father-in-law, and agree to anything that would hurry along their departure.

  The light touch of her hand on his knee brought him back into the present. He looked at her. “Hmm?”

  “You’re sure the extra weight is okay? It’s ten or twelve boxes.”